Some of them gave serious and thoughtful answers through their personal experiences; they had found the quietest place from hikes in the Rocky mountains while looking into the eyes of an eagle or quietness in moments of solitary amidst the vastness of the Sonoran desert or simply just be surrounded by nature.

The majority of people shared my thought that the quietest place is found in everyone – within oneself. It is easy for one to find peace during good times. But when one find peace within himself/herself, one can even find peace in the most traumatic and challenging time.

Through this peace that one find within oneself, one can obtain peace with others like what His Holiness, Dalai Lama said. And through this peace that one obtain with others, we can have peace in the world. Do you think that is possible? I believe it is possible.

Besides peace we make with ourselves, we must also be compassionate and kind to each other; treating each other with loving kindness as if you would be treating your family and friends. There is a saying, “There are no strangers in this world, but only friends we have not met.” And Mitch Albom said in his book, “Strangers are family you have yet to come to know.” There is a certain truth to this as I believe we are interconnected in this world. What we are doing may indirectly affect another.

Since we are not living life as a hermit, there are bound to be communication with people around us. With communication, misunderstanding can easily arise. There is a need for mutual understanding and respect for each other difference. Failing to put ourselves in another shoes usually lead to conflicts. This can be otherwise averted if we are not too quick to judge others or situations. Let us practice less haste and more patience.

The story told of Alvin whom unselfishly gave his golden harmonica to a very ill boy, Tommy, in the hope that he would get better. Isn’t this the true spirit of Christmas? A time of giving to our family and friends and especially to strangers we have never met. And yes, I do agree that the spirit of giving should be all year long and not only during Christmas.

Last year what my friend and I had done are to pool some money to buy presents for the poor children in her community. We did not have a lot of money but she and her cousins managed to buy a lot of presents. They had a great time shopping and wrapping the presents. She told me that the children were really happy to receive all those presents. And that made me very happy too. However, sad to say I would not be able to do much of that this year. How about you, what would you be doing this Christmas?

If you have no idea, maybe you would like to be involved with this great ecookbook idea from Patricia Wisdom; her creative way of helping to spread word on UNICEF. Do hop over to take a look.

And something which I started a year ago. You can download a free copy of Symphony of Love: Pictorial eBook of Love Quotations by Paying it Forward.

More story on giving at Christmas: Secret Santa reveals his identity

It certainly makes more sense for us to give sincere appreciation to our family and friends while they are still around. Life can be really fragile and we are not always guaranteed of tomorrow. There is little room for regrets in life and we must generously lavish our family and friends with gratitude and thanks throughout the year. And perhaps, along the way, we can also reach out a helping hand to others who are in need too.

Besides expressing our gratitudes for our family and friends, we must also give thanks to the environment which has been providing unconditionally for us. And what would be a better way to give thanks to our environment than to protect it.

What are you thankful for this year? What would you be doing this Thanksgiving? Would you be doing anything special this year? Although I am not observing Thanksgiving here, it would be great to share your joy. Wishing you a Bless and Happy Thanksgiving week!

This is a happy weekend for most Americans as they celebrate United States of America’s 233 Independence Day on 4th July. Thus I want to wish them a Happy 233 Independence Day. From yesterday, I have been hesitating if I should make this post. Reading this now, you know the decision I have made.

4-years-old Charmaine Lim, the girl in the photo, loves singing, dancing and cuddling up to her mother. She is just like any other 4-years-old kids. Having a niece of age 5 and two nephews of age 3, Charmaine isn’t any different from them; especially on the part ‘cuddling up to her mother.’ My niece and nephews love that and they will even fight each other, just to sit on my sister’s lap. They are also learning a lesson, that they have to take turn and share or no one gets to sit on the lap. Do you notice any differences from your own 4-years-old there?

The only thing unlike most carefree 4-years-old, is that Charmaine has stage four cancer and is fighting for her life. She was diagnosed with stage four Neuroblastoma, high risk, a kind of cancer that occurs in infants and kids; high risk because the disease has spread to her bone marrow and bones.

Charmaine is undergoing treatment at the National University Hospital (NUH) of Singapore and she is undergoing the 5th rounds of chemotherapy. According to the newspaper report, “She no longer mixes freely with other kids in the playground or attends nursery school, because her lowered immunity puts her at high risk of falling ill.”

According to her medical report, “The current treatment will provide a survival chance of approximately 20%. However, as reported in a reference from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre (MSKCC), New York, with an addition of several doses of a drug 3F8 (on top of her current treatment) will provide a higher survival chance with report up to 40-50%.”

The only challenge is that an initial payment of USD $350,000 with additional payments needed prior to continuing on with treatments. How on Earth could a single mother ever hope to come up with that amount of money? Not to mention that she has to resign from her work this year to take care of Charmaine and to take care of Charmaine’s current bills.

She had thought about giving it up but being a mother, she mentioned, “should anything happen to Charmaine, I would never be able to forgive myself for not trying to fight for Charmaine when all she has to help her is me..” Should we be in her shoes, I strongly believe we would do anything to help Charmaine; as in the case of my father back in 2005-2006, we would do anything as long as it could help him fight against his cancer and improved his quality of life during that period.

Charmaine’s mother wrote in her site, “How do I convince anyone that Charmaine’s life is worth half a million dollars?” The answer is found in the question. Life itself is priceless; we cannot simply put a price tag to life.

There may be a fleeting thought in your mind right now, just as it had come into my mind, “how could we possibly hope to save everyone?” Remember the story of a boy picking starfishes and throwing them back to the sea? An old man ask the boy, “What can you do, there are so many starfishes stranded on the beach? What difference can you make?” The boy replied, “At least to this (referring to the one he holds in his hand), it makes a difference.” And the boy threw the starfish into the sea.

What we could do for Charmaine may not be a lot but it can definitely make a difference. For a 4-years-old girl, she is fighting bravely. From the newspaper, “Perhaps Charmaine’s fighting spirit is best seen when her mother talks about the ‘monster’ inside her. She always replies: ‘Yes, I will fight with the monster.‘”

If you want to make any donation and to send encouraging thoughts to Charmaine, you can go to: Our Feisty Princess. Thank you and wishing all be blessed with good health and happiness.